Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions
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| Textual Feature | Appearance |
|---|---|
| passage deleted with a strikethrough mark | |
| passage deleted by overwritten added letters | |
| passage added above the line | passage with added text above |
| passage added on the line | passage with added text inline |
| passage added in the margin | passage with text added in margin |
| handwritten addition to a typewritten letter | typed passage with added handwritten text |
| missing or unreadable text | missing text noted with "[illegible]" |
| uncertain transcriptions | word[?] |
| notes written by someone other than Willa Cather | Note in another's hand |
| printed letterhead text | printed text |
| text printed on postcards, envelopes, etc. | printed text |
| text of date and place stamps | stamped text |
| passage written by Cather on separate enclosure. | written text |
Aug 9/97 My Dear Friends1,
Just a word to tell you that the dear little lady's3 picture arrived this morning and is smiling at me now. I am hoping she won't be afraid of me when I get back to Pittsburgh4, which I expect will be about the latter part of September. I can just see Mr. Seibel5 with his complete6 Hugos7. I will have to assume an humble attitude before such magnificence. But you haven't got a "Thistle"8 Stevenson9 yet, so I still have one inning to my credit10. I'm most awfully glad you got your stuff11 out of Axtell12 and Orr13. I have'nt got all of mine14 yet. The ways of the children of the Lord sometimes pass the understanding of unbelievers. Speaking of the latter are'nt you glad to hear that out of consideration for my family I attend the Baptist Church15 reg- ularly every Sunday?
Now I maintain that "Hypatia"16 is ahead of the "Cloister."17 The old fighting foxhunting bishop and the glorious big Barbarian are ahead of anything Read18 can do. But my brother19 agrees with you.
This afternoon we start for the wild west to be gone about a week and I hope to find a letter from you on our return. I may go back to Pittsburgh with six-shooters in my belt. I rather want to get back there this winter. Wont we read French though? But you'd better finish the Iceland Fisherman20., Mrs. S—and continue the fortunes of the fascinating Gaud21 (How do you spell her confounded name?)
I went with my brother to a fire last night, after the approved manner of all provincials, and as I did'nt take time to put any stockings on I have a cold. Warn Erna to always wear hose. With lots of love to all of you and hoping we may soon quarrel about limited editions at 114'S. 17th
I amYours as always Willa Cather.
P.S. My mother22, who is much taken with Erna's picture and who is a connoisseur in babies sends her love and compliments to that young lady and says if she has hives this summer rub her with fat bacon! La Pauvre23 Erna!
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0041.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0041
- Contents
- Document is three leaves, handwritten on recto and verso of first two leaves and on recto only of third leaf, with postcript on verso of first leaf.
- Person to whom letter was written
- George Seibel and Helen Hiller Seibel1
- Date letter was written
- August 9, 1897
- Place letter was written
- Red Cloud, Nebraska, United States2
- Location of original letter
- WCPM Collection, National Willa Cather Center, Red Cloud, NE
Individual Annotations
There were multiple collections of Victor Hugo's complete works in print in 1897, including those published by H. S. Nichols, G. Barrie, and Croscup Sterling.
The Thistle edition of Robert Louis Stevenson's works was published by subscription only from 1895 to 1899, so it was probably a significant investment on Cather's part in the 1890s. Later, when Houghton Mifflin wanted to do a collected edition of Cather's work, she held up the Thistle Edition as a model.
Seibel frequently contributed to The Home Monthly.
Cather worked as the unofficial managing editor of the Home Monthly magazine, owned by Axtell, Orr, and Company, from July 1896 until June 1897. The Home Monthly office was on Shady Avenue on the east end of Pittsburgh.
The Cather family attended the Baptist church (built in 1884) in Red Cloud, NE. Willa Cather and her parents later attended the Grace Episcopal church in Red Cloud, joining it in 1922.
Gaud, a nickname for Marguerite, is the sweetheart of the Iceland fisherman in Pierre Loti's novel.
Translation: poor thing (French)
Person Annotations
Seibel, George (1873-1958). American literary and drama critic.
Cather met Seibel and his wife Helen while working as editor of the
Home Monthly in Pittsburgh in 1896 and 1897. They
regularly studied French and German together, Cather read her work in
progress to him, and George reviewed April Twilights
(1903) in the Pittsburgh Gazette.
Seibel, Helen Hiller (1873-1971). Cather’s Pittsburgh friend.
Born in Pennsylvania to German immigrant parents, Helen Hiller
married George Seibel on 6 September 1894. Their one child, Erna, was born
in 1897. Cather met the couple through George Seibel’s work for the Home Monthly, which Cather was editing. Soon the
three were meeting frequently at the Seibel home, studying and translating
French and German literature. Cather read her own poetry and short stories
to them as well. The Seibel house at 114 S. 17th Street on Pittsburgh’s
South Side served as the model for the home of Alfred Engelhardt and his
uncle in “Double Birthday” (1925).
Yorke, Erna Seibel (1897-after 1971). Daughter of Cather’s friends, George and Helen Seibel. Erna Seibel was born in Pittsburgh, PA; Willa Cather was a frequent visitor at her family’s home in her early childhood. She attended Carnegie Tech, studying art. Around 1927 she married Cecil B. Yorke, a writer. They had a son, Duane, and lived in New York in the 1930s, later moving to Santa Cruz, CA. She donated the letters Cather had written to her parents to the Cather Foundation.
Seibel, George (1873-1958). American literary and drama critic.
Cather met Seibel and his wife Helen while working as editor of the
Home Monthly in Pittsburgh in 1896 and 1897. They
regularly studied French and German together, Cather read her work in
progress to him, and George reviewed April Twilights
(1903) in the Pittsburgh Gazette.
Hugo, Victor (1802-1885). French poet, author, and playwright.
Born in Besançon, France, Victor Hugo began his professional life as
a lawyer but ultimately became a writer and an important figure of French
Romanticism. He wrote poetry, novels and plays, and founded the literary
journal Conservatuer Litteraire. His most famous
works are The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831) and Les Misérables (1862). Cather began reading French
literature as a teenager and especially enjoyed Hugo’s novels.
Stevenson, Robert Louis (1850-1894). Scottish writer. Born in
Edinburgh, Scotland, Stevenson refused to allow his always fragile health to
suppress his adventurous spirit. After taking a law degree, he lived and
traveled in France, where in 1876 he met his future wife, a married
American, Fanny Vandegrift Osbourne, in 1876. They were married in 1880, and
he produced his best-known works—Treasure
Island (1883), Kidnapped (1886) and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
(1886)—in the years that followed. In 1888 he set sail for the South
Seas, settling on the Samoan island of Upolo in 1890, where he died and is
buried. Cather admired Stevenson’s writing, discussing him in her journalism
in the 1890s, and cherished her “Thistle Edition” of Stevenson’s collected
works, published from 1895-1899 by Scribner’s.
Axtell, James Wickliffe (1852-1909). Partner in Axtell, Orr, and
Company, owner of the Home Monthly. Born in Waynesburg, PA, the
first son and third child of Reverend Philip Axtell and Eliza Gibbons
Axtell, James W. Axtell graduated from Waynesburg College in 1870 and
married Mary Minor in 1874, with whom he two children who survived infancy,
Clara and Philip. After establishing the Waynesburg Independent, Axtell moved to Pittsburgh, PA, in 1877 where he was
a partner in the publishing firm Axtell, Rush, and Company, and founded the
National Stockman and Farmer magazine. In
partnership with Thomas E. Orr, Axtell purchased the Ladies’ Journal and changed the name to the Home
Monthly. On the recommendation of Charles Gere, Axtell hired Cather
to edit the Home Monthly. She stayed with the Axtells
briefly on her arrival in Pittsburgh in June 1896 and edited the Monthly until June 1897. The Axtells left Pittsburgh
for Nashville, TN, in 1899, where James managed the Cumberland Presbyterian
publishing house until his 1909 death in Lincoln, NE, at the home of his
daughter, Clara Axtell Poynter.
Orr, Thomas Edwin (1852). American educator and editor. Born in Hollidays Cove, WV, Thomas Orr graduated from National Normal University and worked as an educator and superintendent in Iowa and Ohio. His hobby of experimental poultry breeding caught the attention of the National Stockman and Farmer, which hired him as an editor and later as an advertising manager. In partnership with James Wickliffe Axtell, Orr purchased the Ladies’ Journal in June 1896, and changed the name to the Home Monthly. They hired Cather as managing editor of the Home Monthly, and she also contributed to the National Stockman and Farmer. Orr purchased Axtell’s rights to the magazine in 1897, causing Cather to resign.
Reade, Charles (1814-1884). British author and dramatist. Born near Ipsden, England, Charles Reade was a fellow of Magdalen College Oxford and entered the bar in 1843 but never practiced. In 1849 while working as a theater manager he began writing plays and novels, including It is Never Too Late to Mend (1856), Hard Cash (1863), Foul Play (1868), and Put Yourself in His Place (1870). Cather purchased his most famous novel, The Cloister and the Hearth (1861), from a cigar shop in Holdrege, NE, in 1898 and was unimpressed.
Cather, Roscoe (1877-1945) (“Ross”). Cather’s brother.
Roscoe was born in Virginia, the second child and oldest son of
Charles and Virginia Cather. After graduating from Red Cloud (NE) High
School in 1895, he taught country school for two years, attended the
University of Nebraska in Lincoln for one year (1897-1898), taught high
school in Carlton, NE, and Oxford, NE, and finally became superintendent of
schools in Fullerton, NE. There he met fellow teacher Meta Schaper, whom he
married in 1907. They relocated to Lander, WY, in 1909, where he opened an
abstract office and where their three children, Virginia and twins Margaret
and Elizabeth, were born. In 1921, they moved to Casper, WY, where Roscoe
became president of the Wyoming Trust Company, and in 1937 to Colusa, CA,
where Roscoe and his brother Douglass had acquired a controlling interest in
the First Savings Bank of Colusa. Roscoe served as president of the bank
until his death. Willa visited Roscoe and his family in Wyoming several
times and shared important travel experiences with them, including a 1926
trip to New Mexico with Roscoe, Meta, and their children and a 1941 San
Francisco vacation with Roscoe and Meta. She also relied on him to handle
family-related business as well as personal financial matters, and he was
one of her chief correspondents throughout her life. Roscoe served as a
prototype for one of the twin brothers in the Templeton family in “Old Mrs.
Harris” (1932).
Cather, Mary Virginia Boak (1850-1931) (“Virginia” or
“Jenny”). Cather’s mother. Born in the Virginia to William Lee
Boak and Rachel Seibert Boak, Virginia was educated in Baltimore, MD, and
was a schoolteacher until her marriage to Charles Fectigue Cather in 1872.
Her husband’s family were primarily Union supporters during the Civil War
while her family supported the Confederacy (three brothers served in the
Confederate Army although their mother opposed slavery). After her marriage
she tried to help unite the divided family. Four of her children, Willa,
Roscoe, Charles Douglas, and Jessica Virginia, were born in Virginia, while
three, James Donald, Elsie Margaret, and John Esten, were born in Nebraska
after the family moved there in 1883. Despite occasional differences, Cather
remained in affectionate contact with her mother, who remained in Red Cloud,
NE, where the family settled in 1884. After her husband’s death in 1928
Virginia Cather suffered a stroke while visiting her children and their
families in California. She spent nearly three years in a sanitarium in
Pasadena, CA, unable to speak. Willa Cather visited her there several times
but was unable to travel quickly enough from Grand Manan to Red Cloud for
her funeral and interment after she died in Pasadena in 1931. Virginia
Cather was the prototype for Victoria Templeton in “Old Mrs. Harris” (1932),
which Willa Cather completed shortly before her mother’s death.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson: Thistle Edition (September 1895) by Robert Louis Stevenson
Hypatia: Or, New Foes with an Old Face (1853) by Charles Kingsley
The Cloister and the Hearth (1859) by Charles Reade
Pêcheur d'Islande (1886) by Pierre Loti
